


consume

by theredtailedhawkwithjewelsforeyes



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Mentioned Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, OCD, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, this is just projecting so heavily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22502800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredtailedhawkwithjewelsforeyes/pseuds/theredtailedhawkwithjewelsforeyes
Summary: Jaskier fixates. At night he thinks about dying, turning it over and over and over in his head.
Comments: 36
Kudos: 205





	consume

Jaskier… fixates. 

He can pretend at being carefree all he wants, and generally he is, but here are the facts: he finds something to attach to and he obsesses to the point of panic. When he was a child he had been terrified beyond measure of slipping in the mud, to the point where he refused to go outside when it showed any signs of rain. A little older and his fear is catching ill, a fever or a flu, so he kept himself so clean his skin cracked. 

Jaskier fixates. At night he thinks about dying, turning it over and over and over in his head. He pokes and prods at it from all angles he can think of: what if he’s filled up with worms, head to toe? What if there’s a rot in his belly, crawling outwards? The stew he’d eaten last night had been fine but what if it kills him tonight? His heart has always been a bit weak, skipping beats, and he stares up at the stars and knows right down to his bones it will stop soon. 

He knows this so deep inside it aches, and he also knows he will not die tonight. Of course he will not. He is healthy, and young, and perhaps he’s on the skinny side but there is no reason for him to die. 

Still: he packs his things, carefully. Arranges his hair. Makes it so he might make a sympathetic corpse, should anyone find him. Lute across his chest, campsite tidied. He does not sleep, just waits to die. 

He knows he won’t die. 

In the morning it’s forgotten, and he’s able to bounce up and ignore the aches of a sleepless night. But in the night, crickets chirping, his fire gone low, it is a constant stream of what if. 

What if my heart stops? What if I suffocate on smoke from the fire? What if something sees me, something smells me, lying alone out here, and eats me? What if I tangle myself in the sheets and suffocate? What if my breath stops short in my chest and I am never able to recover it? The stew from yesterday, the splinter he’d stepped on today, the hangnail that might become infected and kill him if he’s not careful. 

When he was a little boy, he was afraid of fire. Terrified right down to his core. The smell of smoke would make him sick and the idea of it, his home crackling to ash, would keep him up. He planned it out so many times: if there is a fire, here is what he will do. Grab a pillow, run through the halls to make his parents. If the fire is at the door go through a window. Better broken legs then eaten by flame. He wore thick socks to bed, dressed warmly, because if his home burns everything he owns will go with it. The pillow is for sitting outside and watching everything fall. 

A little older: slipping. It’s something everyone does but he had seen, he had seen someone slip and break their neck, just crack it with the loudest snap, and so he walks carefully on solid ground and refuses anything dangerous. He goes down the stairs one at a time, hand tight to the handrail, and at night he dreams of it. 

Sickness. Not the death of it, just the feeling. The absolute terror of helplessness. He stops eating anything that’s more bland then bread, so he doesn’t upset his stomach. He does not run in case it makes him feel ill. He holds in his breath when he feels twinges of nausea, holds it until he’s dizzy. Cries when he is told to eat without washing his hands because there’s no need for it. 

He lives life around it, happily enough, but inside there is always this creeping, looming thought of ‘if if if’. 

If he dies in his sleep, will he be remembered? There’s no chance of it. He is a bard on a continent of thousands. 

-

He grows up. He takes a lute into his hands and sings and meets a Witcher. 

Sitting by their fire, he looks into the crackle of it and thinks: what if he doesn’t make it back to camp? What if Geralt is killed, finally, by one of the monsters he hunts?

He returns. Jaskier had known he would but he still puts hands, trembling, on his shoulders, his hands. He is shoved away, not unkindly, and so he knows to keep this particular worry a secret. 

(He keeps all his worries a secret. They seem trivial by the light of day.) 

-

Here is what he’s afraid of: parting words are so often cruel. He keeps his light so people can look back on him kindly, so he can know he did not send them away with a secret. 

When he leaves the side of a Witcher, he knows that this will be the last time they ever meet. They were painful, a punishment for his foolishness, a reminder: no matter how hard you try to make it so, things take their own course. 

**Author's Note:**

> this is like. i just recently found out i have ocd and so this is just me sort of coming to terms w it and slapping jaskiers name on it because i already project fucking everything about me onto him, so why not 
> 
> my writing has steadily deteriorated as my general mental health has deteriorated so im sorry 
> 
> love u guys


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